Edukans Foundation Malawi, a non-governmental organisation supporting the education sector, has appealed to the government to recruit more teachers, especially for rural areas to ensure equal access to education and achieve satisfactory learning outcomes across the country.

Edukans country director Limbani Nsapato was speaking in Lilongwe on the sidelines of a stakeholders’ workshop in relation to its programme called School-Based Blended Education Mentorship Program being implemented with funding from the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef).

The programme which rolled out in November last year and phases out this month, is being implemented in Chiradzulu, Dowa, Machinga, Mangochi, Thyolo, Salima, Dedza, Lilongwe and Nsanje, aims to ensure improved opportunities for children through mentorship programmes for teachers and students, leading to greater job satisfaction, and improved learning outcomes.

He said: “The major challenge in implementing this programme has been the shortage of teachers, especially in rural areas, low incentives and motivation to teachers as some have worked for over 15 years without promotion and those in rural areas are hardly getting their hardship allowance which is also a drop in the ocean.

Nsapato, however, expressed satisfaction with the positive results achieved through the project which include improved learning outcomes in the targeted schools and improved results in the national examination in both the primary and secondary schools the project is being implemented. 

Director of Teacher Education and development in the Ministry of Education Zizwa Msukuma acknowledged the challenge, especially on the wider teacher-pupil ratio saying the government is equally concerned and is working on recruiting more teachers.

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